Apple’s iOS7 tells designers to adapt or fall behind

Apple unveiled iOS 7 yesterday, sending veritable shock waves through user and designer communities alike. Sporting a head-to-toe redesign, this iteration of Apple’s operating system, which is due for release this Fall, is easily the biggest change Apple has made since first introducing the iPhone.

It also means that some big changes are in store for any visual designer interested app or app icon design, whether you like it or not.

With iOS7, Apple has firmly staked its place in the flat design vs. skeumorphism debate: they are decidedly flat. When Apple makes such a statement, it amounts to more than just a remark in an ongoing design conversation; it’s an imperative, effectively bringing the conversation to a definitive end. “Join us or die,” Apple essentially said, releasing a comprehensive guide for developers about how to conform their apps to the iOS7’s new look and feel. “Flatten out, or prepare to look antiquated. You have a few months. Get cracking.”

In brief, skeumorphism is the practice of trying to make computer interface elements, such as icons, buttons, windows and other application functions, resemble real-life, physical things through ornamentation. Skeumorphic designs tend to have drop shadows and gradients, because things in the real world do. Some icons really go all out — you’ve seen the address book designs that look like they’re made of real leather, and Apple’s Game Center which looks like wood and green felt.

Flat design rejects all of this in favor of a cooler, sharper, less cluttered aesthetic that, so the theory goes, allows the “content” of an application to take the foreground without ornamentation getting in the way.